


All that you took, all that you left

by calamaris



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst and Drama, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fix-It, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, I can’t even describe how miserable this one is PLEASE stay safe but also....happy ending I promise, Loss of Limbs, Miscommunication, this is much more depressing than 'to hurt to heal' fyi gamers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:19:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28988394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calamaris/pseuds/calamaris
Summary: Things go from bad to worse when Smasher makes an early appearance on the Ebunike. In which: V loses an arm, gives Johnny her body, and both find that neither can live without the other.WIP, on hold. Complete for now.
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand/Female V
Comments: 23
Kudos: 101





	1. Ten of Swords

**Author's Note:**

> this is meant as more of a study on Johnny and V's shared trauma, with a fix-it for the temperance ending. think of it more of a standalone fic than anything else.  
> If you're looking for more soft Johnny/V content, that is going to be in the ['to hurt, to heal' universe](https://archiveofourown.org/series/2110161) which I'll be slowly building on with other one-shots. I'm still thinking of a sequel for THTH, haven't really gotten anything solid yet. When I do, y'all will be the first to know :) thanks for coming back to read more fics for Johnny and V, means a lot ❤️

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UPRIGHT: Painful endings, deep wounds, betrayal, loss, crisis  
> REVERSED: Recovery, regeneration, resisting an inevitable end

The tattoo burns, and it’s all V can focus on.

“We gonna talk, or are you just gonna give me the cold shoulder forever?” Johnny glitches into view when V enters her apartment. He leisurely stretches out on the sofa as she tries to peel off her jacket.

It’s been less than a day since her – _Johnny’s_ – bender. With the promise of Rogue’s help at the back of her mind, V returned to her apartment to do some much-needed personal damage control. She lets out a sharp hiss when her jacket pulls off the healing skin of her tattoo, blood and drainage having adhered her skin to the fabric. She whips her coat at the apartment floor, cussing under her breath, and stalks over to the bathroom. Popping a few pain killers for her hangover, she slaps the tap water on and drinks from her hands. Johnny appears at the doorframe of the bathroom, watching her stand in front of the mirror with water running down her chin.

Hurt and betrayal are things she’s become so intimately familiar with that sometimes she doesn’t think how she appears when she feels them. She probably looks more like a wounded animal than a person, but Johnny clearly sees something else. He’s been poking and prodding her ever since they left the motel she’d woken up in, clearly trying to diagnose how badly he’d fucked up this time.

Each time she refuses to give him an answer, because that would mean telling him exactly how his promise at the Pistis Sophia made her feel. That would mean admitting how deeply she had chosen to trust him, long before then.

No one’s ever made her feel quite so gullible before.

V starts undressing, knowing full well Johnny is still standing there, but she’s in too much pain to give a shit about feigning modesty. She turns on the shower and steps under the spray, dousing her head and washing off her day-old makeup. She can feel Johnny’s presence wane the longer she stays occupied.

The water soaking her hair eventually drizzles down her arms and gently clean the angry raised skin at the edges of her new tattoo, still fresh and oozing blood. Then, she tries to scrub away the grime from yesterday. V lets herself stand under the water for a bit longer after washing her hair before returning to reality. Then she grabs a towel and dries herself off. She quickly tugs on a pair of underwear and a t-shirt before scrounging around for her med kit under the bathroom sink. Stalking out to the main room, she sits on the corner of her bed and opens the first aid box.

“Done with the pity party yet?” Johnny leans against the wall nearest to her bed. The one he’d been standing at when they first met, and he nearly bashed her skull in.

V’s anger burns up her throat and through her veins. Hot indignation swift and powerful in its wave over her.

“Oh, fuck off Johnny.” she finally snaps, rifling around in the kit, “You know exactly why I’m pissed off, don’t act like a fucking five-year-old.” She takes out the gauze and some white cloth wrapping.

“Think you would’ve been able to do the shit I did without me holdin’ your fuckin’ hand?” 

V slams the first aid kit closed and stands up to face him. “Yeah? Hold my hand in a bar fight? Hold my hand while the other finger fucks Ruby while she was driving?” V finally snaps. “All of that so necessary, I’m sure.”

“Quit actin’ like a virgin. I got the info and now Rogue’s gonna help us.” Johnny bumps his head back against the wall, looking pointedly at the ceiling. V is so utterly baffled at how easy it is for Johnny to avoid taking responsibility for his own actions. A biproduct of constantly being blamed by others, certainly, but this time it is indisputably his fault.

V just shakes her head and walks over to pick up her jacket from the floor. She shakes out the dust and the dog tags he’d given her tumble out of the pocket. V hesitates before kneeling down and picking them up off the floor. And it _hurts_. More than it ever did, it hurts because she thought things would be different from now on. She considers them a moment before shoving them back into her jacket pocket. Standing up, V hangs her jacket on her desk chair, returning to the bed without another word.

“Didn’t think you could be so petty, V.” Johnny’s watching her all the while, and she can’t quite pick up on all the emotion locked away in that phrase but it’s more than she’s willing to sympathize for right now. Hurting him once seems like fair compensation for the weeks of suffering on her end.

“You’re one to talk.” She jeers, and then busies herself with wrapping her forearm in the white bandage before taping it secure. “Trying to provoke me all the time like it gives you a fuckin’ stiffy.” 

“Cus otherwise you sit on your ass doing nothing, cryin’ and moanin’ about how hard your life is.”

V swings around from where she’s seated on the bed and throws the first aid kit at him, the contents phasing through his torso and spilling across the floor. It isn’t enough. She knew it wouldn’t be. To his credit, Johnny doesn’t make any snide remarks, in fact he doesn’t move at all. V still has to remind herself that Johnny’s overwhelming presence is only in her head, that the rest of the world moves on without him. But his existence makes her problems insular, like they’re stuck together in some dusty old snow globe. Every once in a while, the anger becomes too much and the globe rattles, sending a cascade of particles previously settled at the bottom into a storm around them. But once it’s over they’re still exactly where they’ve always been.

V’s hair hangs wet and cold around her face. She isn’t facing him anymore, but she can feel him at her back. “Pretty fuckin’ poetic y’know. After everything you said to me at the Pistis, and now this.” She lifts a knee up to her chest, “Feels like I’m a joke to you.”

That pisses Johnny off, she can feel it sharp behind her ribs. He’s a lot of things but he’s never been a liar. His voice comes out hard, “I meant what I said.”

She shakes her head and bows forward. Why, then?

She places her hand over the white gauze on her arm, and squeezes, “Then stop fucking hurting me.” V nearly begs. She’s trying _so fucking hard_ not to bend under the weight of her own pain and with Johnny’s sharper edges constantly pressing into her shoulders it is simply too much.

If she’s learned anything from the relic malfunctions, it’s that she can’t let lesser physical pain control her. It would consume her. Even if her body feels like she’s been put through a paper shredder and taped back together all wrong. Johnny is silent, and she fears it’s all she’ll get in return. V knows she’s already dug herself too deep, so she shuts her mouth before she buries them both. She straightens up, picking up the medkit and returning it to the bathroom.

When she stands up from the sink’s cupboard, Johnny appears in front of her. He’s always been pretty hard to read behind the aviators, but she can see it, because of course she can. The man that’s been in her head for so long, she knows him. That slight twitch of the eyebrow, the way his lips part just a little like he wants to say something, but he can’t bring himself to do it. The way his gaze darts away and then comes back to her. Christ she fucking _knows_ him.

“V…” Johnny starts, and hesitates.

She feels her anger wane, and she wants so badly for this giant chasm between them to not grow any wider. But the longer Johnny refuses to acknowledge how they’re colliding towards each other, the more he tries to steer himself away from it, the more it pulls her out of orbit entirely. 

That uncertainty is still behind Johnny’s eyes, and then he looks away. So that’s his choice. V sighs and brushes past him. She’s sick and tired of waiting while he picks and chooses the times he wants to be vulnerable. She doesn’t get that option, she never has. V walks over to her bed and pulls back the covers. “Head’s still pounding from yesterday, so I’m gonna try to sleep it off.” She doesn’t have to check for confirmation to know he’s disappeared.

>>>

This doesn’t feel right. V was at first attributing it to the Samurai jacket on her back, how she feels like she’s playing the role of someone Rogue would rather be doing this mission with. But the longer they sneak around the Ebunike, the more V realizes it’s something worse than that. They are massively unprepared if Smasher really is here. V feels like she’s trying to put together a puzzle with pieces intentionally missing. Johnny has more insights into the way Rogue is acting, offering the very apt observation that the fixer is nervous. It helps assuage V’s worry that she’s just being paranoid, but it does little else in preparing them for what comes next. After taking back Johnny’s personal effects and the location of his burial site, Grayson says something odd.

“Should’ve learned the most important thing about Smasher.” Grayson coughs on his own blood. 

Rogue sneers, “And what’s that.”

“Timing.”

And then, a thunderous slam on the deck behind them. Rogue pales, true fear taking over her features. When V turns, Adam Smasher is standing on a cargo bin, staring down at them both like two trapped mice.

“V.” Johnny’s speaking to her, she spins to look at him and his vest is back on. “Run.”

Rogue slides behind another crate as Smasher jumps down to the main deck, and V moves on instinct, quickly dodging gunfire.

“I remember you!” Smasher yells at Rogue.

V’s hands move of their own accord, loading the Malorian Arms with pistol ammo. Her kneecaps are shaking so bad, her bones feel like they’re collapsing. V has good aim, but this is pushing it.

“There’s a partition in his chest plate, that’s where he’s weak.” Johnny is sitting next to her behind the crate, “shoot it off to expose his heart.”

“Ammo’s gonna ricochet—” V speaks aloud, forgetting entirely about looking sane. 

There’s the telltale sound of machine gun fire and then V catches a glimpse of Rogue between another set of crates. She’s reloading her gun, patient and efficient in battle, even if she’s scared shitless.

“Malorian’s got penetration rounds. Pierce right through, just shoot.” Johnny nods.

V twists out of her hiding spot and finds Smasher is nearly on top of her. She dodges out of the way, sliding behind a forklift. Taking aim, she shoots at the chest plate, which doesn’t detach completely but loosens to cause a gap. Rogue stands on the opposite of V, intending to make Smasher decide which one of them to go after. He chooses V, running at her and initializing the rockets on his shoulder.

V quickhacks an optics reboot and sprints away from the forklift, which Smasher runs into amidst his temporary blindness. Another quickhack and V initiates the forklift to lower down, unhinging the rocket from Smasher’s shoulder and crushing his metal pauldrons. He grips the two forks of the machine and snaps them out of locked position. His eyesight returns and he picks up the entire piece of equipment, tossing it at Rogue. 

“Rogue!” V shouts, and Rogue is already out of the way, shooting off the remaining attached portion of Smasher’s chest plate. The forklift explodes on impact and the ensuing pressure sends out a shockwave that nearly knocks Rogue off her feet.

V shoots at Smasher’s back, getting his attention back on her with a cyberware malfunction quickhack. His movements become stilted and it gives Rogue enough time to reload. She shoots at the narrow vertebrae of his spine and then gives a quick glance to V.

“Got good aim? Here!” she shouts.

“Yeah!” V replies, moving to Smasher’s right side, and Rogue gestures to the grenade in her hand before tossing it up in the air at his back. They both shoot and V can’t tell who hits it, but the ensuing explosion is followed by a loud crack of a mechanism breaking. His back plating goes up in flames, fire licking up the wiring of his abdomen, singeing his armor. Rogue shoots at his spine one more time and Smasher lets out a blood-curdling roar of indignation, the metal of his vertebrae collapsing under the pressure, incapacitating him. V reloads the Malorian, returning to stand in front of him and fires at the gap in his plating, rupturing the heart that beats mechanical inside. He falls to his knees, and then crumples to the floor. It is strange how hushed the Ebunike becomes.

V steps closer, peering down at Smasher who lies dead and still, his head tilted to the side at a strange angle. She catches a glimpse of his neural port, and an occupied chip slot. She’s spent so long trying to play catchup with the most powerful people on top. It must have something on it, _anything_ to even the odds. V stares at the card fit into the back of Smasher’s head and decides to take it.

“Careful, V.” Rogue warns, gun aimed at the crown of Smasher’s head. It’s only upon closer inspection that V realizes how hard the fixer is shaking. Any battle can end badly, V knows that. But somehow neither of them can fully believe they’ve just taken down Arasaka’s borg.

“I got it, just a second.” V is tentative at first, and then presses on the chip to unlock it, tugging it loose and enclosing it in her palm.

Smasher’s hand comes up and latches onto her left arm like iron. A backup mechanism designed to trap anyone brave enough to take the chip from his head. Rogue shoots Smasher’s face, but the mechanism is running autonomously somewhere else in his body. The process does not halt, and V is stuck.

V feels her arm straining, signals going off at the back of her mind that something terrible is about to happen. And then with little ceremony, it does. Smasher’s remains move, heavy and deliberate, V twisting in his grasp enough only to move a few inches. He slashes upward with the knife attached to his thigh.

Grayson’s warning going off in the back of her head: Timing.

She feels an agonizing pain shoot through her shoulder that won’t stop. Her skin sears hot, stinging like she’s been burned. Her body and mind suddenly so disjointed she can’t grasp at reality.

V’s brain reels, a new sensation taking over so quickly that it makes her stomach roll. Her entire body shakes, shouts at her that catastrophe has just struck. V falls onto her back, catching only glimpses of Rogue stabbing at the mechanical tendons in Smasher’s neck that hold his head to his shoulders.

It doesn’t click at first, the adrenaline clouding everything else. Her body is shutting down, going into shock. V sees Rogue running over to her side, and she doesn’t think she’s ever seen such naked horror before.

Rogue takes off her jacket and ties the sleeve somewhere on V’s left side. She can feel her ears ringing, another set of hands come down and hold her shoulder blades in place, and oh—that noise is her. V is screaming, she’s _thrashing._ And Johnny is above her, his eyes wide and frantic, he almost looks like a different person.

Something wet is sticking to the back of her neck and soaking into her hair. V finally gets an earful of her own sobbing, pained shriek at full volume before she blacks out.

>>>

“…hear me?” Rogue is shouting something.

V thinks she’s moving but she isn’t sure. The edges of her mind are unfamiliar, she is being held by someone who is not wholly herself and yet feels like home. Something pulls her further and further back from consciousness. It is a comfort to be taken over.

“Johnny you gotta keep it together. Do it for V alright?”

That feeling intensifies tenfold, reaching out at her and pulling her back under with renewed urgency.

V fades out.

>>>

It’s the first time in recent memory that Johnny is alone. V lies unconscious on the chair in Vik’s clinic, so heavily medicated he can feel it on the back of his tongue. But Johnny doesn’t feel the pull to slip away, the lull to sleep like she does. He paces around Vik’s shop and works silently against the pain that sometimes threatens to wake V up, easing it out of her mind and into his own. It’s a silent process, one he knows he doesn’t have to do but feels responsible to her, somehow. And that quiet obligation to take her pain just makes him more frustrated – at her, at himself, at the fucking world. The longer he goes without her being awake and present with him, the more he realizes how terrible things could’ve gone, how bad they’ve just become.

The fact that both him and V have now officially lost the same arm – the same _fucking_ arm – the odds being exactly 50 to 50. It all feels like a colossal fuckin’ joke. It was already agonizing the first time, and now he has to relive that trauma through V, the one person on earth that his soul is bound to. The one person he can’t stand to see suffer any more than she already is. The one that he—

It doesn’t matter. He can’t have her. They’ve tried to have the conversation before, her draw to him so strong he can feel her tug at his heart outside his body. Some parts of them are so tangled up in each other that he can’t discern who they first belonged to. He’s scared for her; he’s scared _of_ her. And the most terrifying thing of all is that he wants her all the same.

V stirs, a sudden spasm scorches through his shoulder blade and into his missing arm. Johnny nearly staggers from it but quickly pulls it back out of her reach, stomaching her pain and his own rousing trauma so she stays sleeping. Vik comes over to check on her, and then his eyes drop to V’s bandaged forearm. There’s a part of Johnny that instantly begins to panic, a lit cigarette between his fingers before he can even blink. Because the last thing he wants is for V to have to explain in any human language the complexity of what that tattoo means. The good, the bad, the _complicated._

How do you describe how stuck you are with the person inside your head, how comfortable it becomes to have them around? What a relief it is to know you’re not alone even despite the growing pains it sometimes brings.

Automatically, Vik rifles through his supplies to get fresh gauze and a tin that Johnny recognizes as some kind of antibiotic salve. For some reason, Johnny’s frustration just keeps rising. Both for not being able to physically help V himself, and also for seeing Vik do it without even batting an eye. It’s not in Johnny’s nature to automatically be kind – and watching Vik make it look so easy – it makes Johnny wish he were different. He comes around to stand on the opposite side of V’s chair and watches as Vik gives pause, because he’s taken off the bandaging and has come face to face with the consequences of Johnny’s bender. Johnny isn’t familiar enough with Vik to know the nuance to his expression, but he estimates it’s somewhere in the unhappy range. Maybe even pissed off. Vik even has the audacity to shake his head, looking up at V’s sleeping face as if, somehow, she’d wake up and tell him it was all some big misunderstanding.

Johnny hates that he can’t intervene in this exchange, can’t stop Vik from searching V’s face like he’ll find answers. He hates it, hates that Vik works while being so openly vulnerable with his patients, hates how obvious it is that he despises Johnny’s presence in her life. He doesn’t need anyone else giving their opinion on his relationship with V because nobody gets it. It’s _different_ with her, an outsider couldn’t possibly understand how deep a bond goes when you share a head and a body with someone. And unless any of V’s companions have also decided to braid their souls together like a fucked up friendship bracelet then, as far as Johnny is concerned, they can all fuck off.

Vik gingerly wipes away any dried blood with a clean damp cloth and applies a thin layer of the salve before wrapping the tattoo in a gauze Johnny knows is more suited for protecting burns and the like. Something that won’t stick to the skin. Vik being an astute observer kind of makes Johnny more annoyed with him. Then, Vik wraps a bandage around V’s forearm to hold everything securely in place.

There are footsteps on cement, coming down the staircase of the clinic. Vik turns away from his focus and greets the new arrival. Queen of the Afterlife, herself.

“You’re back.” Vik addresses her and then cleans up his supplies. 

“Hey.” She pulls apart the metal gating to the clinic and steps inside. “How is she?”

Vik sighs, “Still asleep. Will be for the next few hours.”

Rogue walks slowly over to V’s reclined body, eyes landing on her wrapped shoulder, where her arm used to be.

“I need to uh,” Vik scratches his forehead, puts his hands on his hips. Clearly looking for an out, Johnny thinks maybe the tattoo revelation did nothing but exhaust him.

“You can take a break, I’ll keep watch.” Rogue offers, kicking the wheeled stool closer to V.

“Thanks. Be just a few.” Vik opens the metal door and sets off up the stairs for Misty’s Esoterica. It’s quite safe for the low volume of Vik’s television, which Johnny thinks he’s never seen turned off since they’ve been here. Rogue sits down on the stool and rolls over to V’s right side, taking note of her bandaged forearm.

Johnny drops his cigarette and lets himself overtake that small barrier that’s kept them separate. He sinks into that familiar feeling of her mind, and he can feel V so easily let him, like it’s become automatic, she welcomes it. He can feel her reach out, a bare touch on a part of his soul that he’s silently reserved for her, feels her relief at his presence, then delights in the comfort. That deep affection that she keeps hidden for him is so fucking intoxicating, he almost wants to stay in the in-between just to hold it a little longer.

Johnny opens his eyes, _her_ eyes, and turns his head just enough to look at Rogue.

“Johnny.” Rogue acknowledges and Johnny closes his eyes again. It’s harder like this, her pain isn’t muted like it is when he’s just observing.

“Yup.”

“How are things?”

“Fine for now.” Johnny clears his throat, “She won’t be when she wakes up.”

Rogue sighs, “You’re angry.”

“’Course I am. She didn’t fuckin’ listen to you.”

“To you or me?” Rogue asks. When Johnny doesn’t answer she just rolls her eyes. “She isn’t your punching bag.”

“Think she’s doing well enough making herself into one. Doesn’t need my help.”

“Whatever, I didn’t come here to argue with you. I came here to talk about what we found.”

Johnny gives her a pointed look as if he’s waiting for her to continue. Frankly it’s less about him being intentionally difficult and more about him being in so much pain he doesn’t really have the patience to talk more than he needs to.

Rogue seems to understand anyway, because she begins to explain. “Cleaned out the Ebunike and destroyed Smasher’s borg remains. I got Nix to jack into the neural port on his meat just to make sure we didn’t miss anything.”

“Ok, Dr. Frankenstein aside, was there anything valuable on it? Remember it bein’ shot full of holes.”

“You and I both know it takes more than that. There’s something valuable but we’re still decrypting the security on it.” Rogue crosses her arms, “Locked up tighter than most people’s heads because he was barely human at all. I’ll call V when I have something.” 

“And his neural chip?”

“That’s partly why I’m here. Came to ask for it.”

“Sure, it’s in her bag. Surprised you didn’t already.”

“It may come as a surprise to you, but I came to see how V was doing.” Rogue stands up and walks over to V’s things, unzipping a small pocket on the side of her bag and retrieving Smasher’s neural chip. “I owe her that much.”

“Why?”

Rogue turns around to face him, “Christ, for getting her stuck in the middle of us, Johnny.” Rogue’s voice rises in her frustration, “For subjecting her to Smasher without letting her know what she was getting into. Shit she doesn’t understand.”

“She knew.”

Rogue shakes her head, “ _No_ she didn’t. V did it because you asked,” and even as Johnny opens his mouth to object, she points a finger at him, “and you know it.”

Johnny knows why his temper flares at the accusation. Because it’s _true,_ and the fact that it’s so obvious to even Rogue makes him feel like an even bigger pile of shit than he did before. First for letting this happen, and now from knowing it was for his sake alone that she did the job, “That’s not—”

“It doesn’t matter now anyways does it?” Rogue looks to V’s shoulder and sighs. “Damage done.”

Johnny swallows the lump in his throat. To know the helplessness that comes with losing a limb makes it all the more personal. Everything hurts. He’s so scared for her to wake up. “Guess so.”

They can hear Vik returning down the stairs, and so Rogue stows away the chip, murmuring, “When I get something, I’ll call.”

Johnny closes his eyes as Vik opens the door. Rogue says her goodbyes as Johnny relents on his control over V’s body, carefully withdrawing his firm grip. In a lot of ways, it feels like coming up from underwater. Like he’s letting go of her wrist and letting her float atop the surface, her ears submerged enough to mute her surroundings. He’s not strong enough to pull her out of the water completely, all he can do is stand watch and make sure she doesn’t drown.

>>>

V wakes up slowly. Her awareness over her surroundings feels sluggish.

“Where?” V hears herself say. She recognizes Vik’s clinic, but her body feels disconnected, as if it’s speaking a different language than her mind and they can’t translate each other. The neon lights are blurry, and far away.

“Easy,” she can hear Vik call out, and then there’s a hand on her right shoulder. She thinks? “Meds are still wearing off.”

V doesn’t speak for a long moment, her own heartbeat in her ears is distracting her concentration. She frowns, eyes opening again and searching the room.

“Johnny?” she asks aloud. Her gaze finds Vik and she sees the pull of his eyebrows, an expression of silent concern.

“It’s me, kid.” Vik replies.

“Vik.” V repeats and Vik nods, a soft smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. The relic spikes pain into an answer, and V hisses, trying to reach up to grip her head. Only the message doesn’t seem to send, and she feels dumbfounded for a moment when her hand never complies with a request that should be automatic.

“V, look at me,” Vik sits on his stool and urges her to turn her head to him. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

She considers it, the events of what happened only a short time ago coming back like a movie playing at twice the speed. “Smasher.”

That dull burning in her body comes back stronger, and she can feel her heart beat faster, rising up to meet it. “He grabbed me.”

“I’m sorry, V.” Vik’s words make her stomach plummet, “But your arm…”

_My arm. My arm?_

That familiar pull at the back of her mind recedes even more, that feeling she knows without a doubt to be Johnny. He is slinking further and further into a crawlspace, shutting the door behind him.

V feels it then, connects those two dots that weren’t drawn in pen across the paper yet. She looks down at her side and finds that her left arm is entirely missing.

“I know this is a lot to take in, just breathe.” Vik sounds muffled.

She considers his words a moment and finds them odd. Why would he tell her to breathe? She’s breathing. She wants to say that she is but she _can’t._

Her body heaves and the relic feels like it weighs a hundred pounds, blood rushing, pounding on her skull. V realizes she is having a panic attack.

Vik grabs her face and makes her look at him, “At me, V. Look, breathe in,” Vik makes a show of breathing slowly in and V attempts to do the same. The pull to hysterics is almost irresistible but Vik doesn’t give up on her, he breathes out through his mouth. “Good.” He does so again and V makes a real effort to follow the motions, even as her lungs feel like they will spasm and collapse at any moment. This goes on for several minutes, but Vik is steady and compassionate, not once faltering even as V threatens to fall apart in his arms.

The relic buzzes against her brain, something deep within her tries to drive itself against his comfort but she doesn’t listen. Like the tattoo – she can’t give into lesser pain than what the relic is already giving her. She has to control this, or she won’t survive it. 

“There.” Vik speaks softly, “See? You’re alright.”

V closes her eyes, grabs tight to those few moments of composure and holds them. She opens her eyes, her right arm coming up and pressing to her forehead. She steadies her breathing again before she speaks, “I just can’t…” she struggles, “Vik, this doesn’t feel real.”

“It won’t for a while, that’s normal.” Vik stands up and rounds the table, “So is grief that comes along with it.” Vik crosses his arms over his chest, “I emailed some contacts of mine, gonna try to fit you with a prosthetic.”

V shakes her head, it’s all too much at once. “No.”

Vik looks at her, “V…”

“Just need some time to think,” V fights the tears that threaten at the corners of her eyes. “Please. Wanna go home and recoup.” She smiles shakily, “Raincheck, okay?”

Vik stands next to her and nods with a sympathetic smile, “Okay. You can go home tomorrow, just rest a bit longer.”

Out of everything, V acquiesces to this.

>>>

Johnny glitches into view, phantasmal and unstable. Then without a word, disappears again. V can do little but stare blankly at the place he just occupied, waiting for the inevitability of his return. He appears a second time with a cigarette in his mouth, puffs of smoke accumulate where he’s pacing back and forth around Vik’s punching bag. Glitches out, again.

Every time Johnny appears and looks at V, a sharp pain shoots behind her eyes and she feels her grip on her own body waning. Then, Johnny disappears. This happens several times before V finally understands what’s happening. She’s too weak to fight him off, and Johnny seems to know it. Every time she feels his anger pulling her out of reality, he roughly lets her go, relinquishing control back to V before he accidentally takes over entirely.

He’s desperate to say something, the relic is a low roar in the back of her ears, steadily growing louder the longer he holds onto his anger. In this moment, Johnny is a match made to strike. If he pulls too hard on his temper, he ignites, he takes over. But if he doesn’t say anything, he still hurts her by proxy and burns them both.

There’s no resolving this. Part of their argument seems to be reduced to a mental fist fight, with Johnny holding ever single advantage over her. They need to have equal footing when they fight, they can’t be hurting. Because even if it’s vitriolic, at least it’s honest and sharp and real. If he insults her, she can insult him back and it feels fair. This doesn’t feel fair at all. This feels like they’re both bleeding out, both dying – and yet still brandishing knives with the intent to kill.

He finally decides to show, and this time he doesn’t disappear. He’s got a cigarette, still, his eyes hidden behind the draw of smoke.

“Shoulda just left the data. Then you wouldn’t have dragged Rogue n’ me into your mess.” He finally announces, with no preamble. Johnny implying that he’s siding with Rogue despite there being no sides to begin with pisses V off.

_You asked me to get Rogue’s help._

“Didn’t ask you to get your fuckin’ arm taken off,” Johnny’s voice rises with his anger, he grabs hold of his own metal arm. V’s heartbeat thuds loudly in her ears, the relic wreaking havoc on her head, “Some doe-eyed amateur now?”

 _It was an accident,_ V’s eyes prick tears, _And you know it was._

“Does it feel like a fuckin’ accident, V? Does your missin’ arm feel like a ‘no hard feelings’ moment?”

V’s veins burn, hot fury bubbling within her. She’s still mourning a lost limb and Johnny is digging a knife in her guts.

“Let Smasher get the better of you.”

_Shut up! You weren’t there! I did everything I could’ve, just shut your fucking mouth!_

“Shoulda’ done one step more. ‘Cus now you’re fucked, and I ain’t digging you out.”

He may as well drop her heart in the dirt and step on it. Johnny hates her. Johnny hates her and it devastates her.

Hot tears run down her cheeks, she shudders like an earthquake, her heartbeat frantic to keep up with the tremors that wrack her from the inside out. Her grief is bursting her open from the inside, clawing its way out of her chest until all she can do is scream in agony. Distantly she can feel Vik’s hold on her right arm. V is so desperate to disappear she can’t think straight. She doesn’t want to feel anything, at all. She’s never felt so alone.

“V, what happened, _breathe_.”

“No.” she sobs harder, she’s reaching inconsolable hysterics, “I can’t do it, I can’t Vik, _I can’t_! Please, please, _please, please,_ ” she doesn’t know what she’s asking for, all she knows is she wants to stop feeling this way.

Vik reaches for something across the table and injects it into V’s right arm, and she cries out before her muscles go limp, delirious relief floods her system. Vik holds her up, whatever sedative he injected quickly rendering her boneless and silent. And V watches the lights above her chair flicker and fade out completely. 


	2. Six of Swords

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UPRIGHT: Transition, change, rite of passage, releasing baggage.  
> REVERSED: Personal transition, resistance to change, unfinished business.

Misty is humming.

It’s a song V remembers hearing on the radio several times. The longer the melody continues, the more V realizes how much it suits her. It’s a small comfort that she can cling to, that she can still make such a simple connection between her friends and their wants while her own body is on the verge of rejecting her mind.

V rouses carefully, wiping her eyes. She’s so used to waking up and seeing Vik’s clinic, she thinks she may forget what the ceiling of her own apartment looks like.

“Mornin’ V.” Misty greets softly.

“Hey Misty,” V sits up and notices that Misty has the replica of Johnny’s jacket in her hands, which she is mending with a needle and thread. Vik is nowhere to be found.

Misty looks up briefly at V and then smiles as she continues with her work, “Almost done.”

“Where’d you…”

“You came in with it when Rogue brought you to Vik’s. It was in pretty rough shape, sleeve was torn off and everything.”

V doesn’t recall, but her left shoulder gives out a resounding sting in retaliation. “I don’t remember.”

“That’s ok, I’ll remember it for you.” Misty smiles up at her and then returns to her work, readjusting the thimble on her pointer finger. “It’s still in good shape. Gonna last you a long time.”

She wants to cry. “’S not mine.”

Misty hums again, “Sure it is, it’s a perfect fit.”

V sighs shakily, the low hum of the room’s machinery and the crinkling of fabric between them. With no preamble or explanation, she cuts through the silence, “He hates me, Misty.”

Misty knots the finishing stitch secure and then reinverts the sleeve. She looks up at V briefly with a sympathetic gaze before setting aside her sewing kit and standing up. She brings the jacket over to V and sets it in her lap, “Sometimes we confuse being upset with someone with actually hating someone.” Misty runs her fingers along the Samurai logo stitching of the jacket, “Especially when we hurt.”

V sniffs, shakes her head, and then wipes at her eye. “How can you be sure?”

Misty smiles a bit, “Jackie imparted a lot of knowledge you know.” She nods, “Best judge of character I ever met.”

V can’t help but laugh a bit, it’s scratchy and rough. “Think so? He always wanted to see the best in people, maybe to a fault.”

Misty chuckles a bit, “Yes, they often go hand in hand. He’d think with his heart instead of his gut, but it was just because he wanted to give people that chance. Prove they were good.” She nods, “But he always knew deep down.”

V remembers the way Jackie had talked about their chemistry when they first met, how _right_ it felt to be partners.

And the stark difference in relationship dynamics with her companion that followed swiftly after. Before the heist, before _everything_ leading up to that botched mission, it felt like V’s life could go anywhere. She was the captain sailing some unknown course – and there was something freeing about that, the possibility of something better in the offing. But now she is careening toward an abrupt and embarrassingly unpoetic demise. A storm she didn’t see coming that was always there, too fucking ignorant to see it. No glory, just a tempest sweeping her off deck and a clumsy slip into the water below, where she will inevitably drown. 

Her life is now bisected. Before meeting Johnny, and after – before being sentenced to death, and after. He was an omen, a shadow at her back that reminded her how little time she had left.

V thought she’d found something in him, someone who would hold her as her fragile life disappeared from her eyes, but it turns out she killed that too. With all the dead she’s left in her wake, she wonders if all this time, the real reaper wasn’t Johnny at all.

Vik returns, opening the metal gate. “Sorry about that,” he apologizes to Misty and then upon seeing V awake, he smiles.

Misty moves to pick up her sewing supplies, “I’ll be in the shop, come up when you’re all packed, V. I’ll give you a reading before you go.” she excuses herself and closes the metal gate behind her.

V gets up, albeit slowly, to begin packing her things.

“How’re you feeling?”

“M’fine. Thanks Vik,” V tries zipping her bag but finds it to be a challenge with only one hand. Vik comes over and helps hold it closed while she pulls the zipper. “I think I just wanna rest in my own bed, y’know?”

“Hm.” Vik nods in understanding but shuffles over to his desk and takes out two bottles of pills, bringing them over, “Painkillers, and omega blockers.” He shakes each bottle and offers them to V. She looks up at Vik’s face before plucking the painkillers, leaving him with the other. 

He sighs heavily, dropping his hands to his sides when it’s clear she won’t take both. “Look, V—”

“Don’t waste your breath Vik,” she plays it off with a small laugh, “haven’t even touched the first bottle you gave me—”

“I saw your ink.” He interrupts. V’s grip tightens where she’s gripped the shoulder strap of her bag. There is a buzzing near the back of her ears, something indigent and sharp crawling its way out of the relic and to the forefront of her mind.

V stares at Vik a long time, she doesn’t know what to say to that. She’s so caught up in how upsetting it is that he’d bring it up in the first place. The fact that he’d see it and think it’s any of his business. The fact that such a thing is humiliating at all.

“Was that your idea?” he asks.

“Doesn’t matter now, does it?” she shoots back, deflecting is the best she can do. 

“Take that to mean it wasn’t.”

V glares at him sharply, her last-ditch attempt to warn him before she snaps entirely. She wants to go home, she wants to leave, she is crushed by the weight of her lack of control over anything in her life—

She doesn’t realize she’s crying until her own pain starts to recede, until that feeling that’d been crawling to the surface retreats back to its quiet corner, and the throbbing migraine is no longer drowning out the feeling of hot tears running down her cheeks. Fuck she’s tired of hurting – and if Johnny’s waning existence in her mind is any indication, he’s tired of seeing it.

Vik seems to understand how narrow the line is that he’s toeing. He doesn’t discomfort at her tears, he just reaches under one of his cupboards and hands her a few tissues. V pulls her bag onto her good shoulder and then takes the tissues, roughly swabbing under her eyes.

“I’m just _worried_ about you, kid. Christ, first the relic, and now you’re lettin’ him out unsupervised,”

V finds it quietly amusing Vik talks about Johnny like he’s a caged animal. He isn’t wrong at all, she has the bruises and scratches to prove it.

“I’m just afraid.” He admits. Her own doctor saying such a thing should be more concerning. But V can’t bother to feel anything much at all. Maybe all she needs is time.

V looks down at Johnny’s mended jacket. “Me too, Vik.”

It’s too bad that time is the one thing she’s quickly running out of.

>>>

Vik allows V to go home with the stipulation that she let Delamain take her. He fits her with a softly padded protective sleeve for her shoulder’s stump. It wraps around like a sling, supported by her neck.

V calls for the taxi and goes upstairs to wait in Misty’s shop for his arrival. V takes up her offer for the tarot reading, after Misty helps her back into her jacket. Misty rolls up the limp sleeve on her left and clips it in place before rounding the table and shuffling her cards.

“Focus on your recent past and what you expect in the future.” Misty pulls the first card and sets it on the counter in front of them, “The Hanged Man, reversed.” She touches the card briefly, “this would be you, or your current state.”

“That’s not very comforting.”

“You’ve just been through a very difficult time, this is a reflection of that.” Misty explains, “It doesn’t mean things are set in stone, it’s just some helpful insight.”

V nods for her to continue, and so Misty sets down the second card, “The Hermit.”

V scoffs at the irony. She’s kind of glad Johnny is so far at the back of her mind that there’s a chance he isn’t seeing Misty so easily pinpoint her sore spots. “In solitude brings a better understanding of oneself. Spending time alone isn’t always a bad thing, draw strength from it to guide you forward.” Misty nods, and then pulls the third card, an image of a shrouded skeletal figure as the point of focus.

“Judgement. An unavoidable call to action. Whatever you’re headed towards, it is unavoidable.” “No point in trying, then.” V concludes, but Misty shakes her head.

“That’s not true, and it’s not necessarily a negative card. Judgement can also mean rising up to embrace something new, think of it like a rebirth.” Misty takes her last card and places it down on the table.

“The Lovers reversed. A relationship that is struggling under the weight of difficult decisions.” She taps a finger to her bottom lip, “This paired with the reversed hanged man and the hermit indicates a very strong relationship that has changed or is in the process of changing. It also could mean that whatever journey you’re on has just as much influence on the people around you as it does on yourself.”

V swallows hard, the bright red sign hanging above her head burns a little bit hotter, the ends of her hair singe as Hanako sits waiting for her at Embers, Mikoshi always looming in the distance. “Thanks Misty.”

>>>

V tosses her bag first, and slides into the back seat of Delamain’s taxi.

“Good morning, V.”

“Hey Del.” V tugs off her jacket and lays it out on her lap. “Wanna go home.”

“Certainly, I will plot the route now.”

“Thanks.” V leans back against the headrest of her seat and closes her eyes. The taxi turns out of the alleyway that leads to Misty’s Esoterica and begins driving along the roundabout.

Del speaks up, “May I ask a question, V?”

“Seems like it.” She doesn’t open her eyes.

“I am well acquainted enough to know that you often deflect questions when you are under duress. Is something the matter?”

V wants to laugh at the absurdity of the AI in her taxi playing psychologist. If she wasn’t at her lowest point yet, this would absolutely get her there.

She opens her eyes finally, leans her elbow against the window and rests her temple against her knuckles, “Everything’s the matter Del.”

“I did notice upon your entry that your weight has decreased significantly.” Del states, “My scan indicates you are missing a limb.”

“ _Christ,_ didn’t install your bedside manner this morning?”

“My apologies, I now understand how my language was construed as offensive.”

V laughs miserably, “Yeah a fuckin’ little.”

“I did not mean to cause harm. I consider you…a significant acquaintance, I was merely concerned for your wellbeing.”

She sighs, “It’s fine, Del. Not like you’re the one who tore it off.”

The relic snaps against her head like the sting of a rubber band. Then, it goes eerily silent. No pain at all, so much so that it fills V with dread.

 _Johnny?_ she calls out to her mind. Still silence. V’s heart thuds hard against her ribs, “Johnny?” she speaks it out loud this time, more urgent.

And then, a quiet answer. The familiar echo of his outstretched hand, his fingers prying open a part of her she hadn’t realized was carved out for him. She doesn’t know when she did that. He barely brushes up against her ribs to tug at her chest, enough to denote his presence. Then, he draws back again, back to the corner he’s taken up as primary residence. V sags down in her seat, having exhausted her last bit of energy by her own open panic.

Johnny is still avoiding her, maybe because he knows she’s too tired to fight. Maybe to ease the inevitable bruising between them. She wants to make things right, but she knows she’s in no condition to be reaching out to him. With them, it always leads in a fight, even if the end result is positive. So she leaves him to his contemplation, even if it hurts. She has to remind herself that this is infinitely better than the fear that had gripped her so violently. The idea that he’d disappear entirely—

She shuts her eyes again, wills herself to think of something else, _anything_ else. V doesn’t have to entertain the idea to know that there is no chance on earth she’d ever be able to recover from the cavernous hole in her chest it would leave in his wake. 

As soon as V makes it back into her apartment, she gets a call from Judy.

V tosses her bag and jacket on her bed and sits down at her computer, pressing answer.

“Hey Jude.”

“Don’t ‘hey Jude’ me!” Judy crosses her arms, trying to look severe but succeeding more at looking petulant. “You’ve been offline for like, a week. What happened?”

“It’s _been_ a big week.”

Judy stays quiet for a moment, clearly trying to discern V’s condition through her view on the holo screen. “How big?”

“I uh,” V swallows hard. Somehow it feels like she’s about to tell Judy a family member just died. “I lost my arm. Left arm got taken off in a fight and um,”

“ _Shit, V_.”

“What’s wrong?” Another voice speaks up in the background.

Judy turns her head to speak to the other person in the room. “V lost her left arm.”

It’s quiet a moment, Judy watching someone approach her, and then Evelyn Parker appears in the holo.

“Did you get a replacement limb?”

V shakes her head, “Told my ripper I just needed some time to think.” She lifts a knee to her chest while she sits in her chair, “Grieve.”

Evelyn nods, then looks to Judy, “We should drop by.”

That gets V’s attention, “Why?”

She turns back to the camera, lifting a brow, “What, don’t want the company?”

“Ev…” Judy shakes her head and Evelyn just shrugs.

“What? She’s obviously miserable, she needs the support. Besides, I have contacts that can get you something custom fit. Much better than something premade.”

V opens her mouth to object, but Evelyn continues.

“Don’t have to wear one right now I just want to get your upper arm measurements, so we’re set when you’re ready.”

V groans, “Fine.”

“Sweet!” Judy huddles in closer to the holo, “Have you eaten yet? We’ll pick something up on our way over.”

An hour later, Judy and Evelyn show up at V’s apartment. When she opens the door, both Evelyn and Judy’s eyes immediately trail to her left shoulder. In another life, she’d find their synchronous staring funny, but at this point it just makes her sore.

Judy walks in with several brown paper bags of food and sets them down on the coffee table. Evelyn trails behind with a toolbox in one hand, a cigarette in the other nearly burned down to the filter. She flicks it off the ledge of the apartment before entering V’s unit.

“How are you doing?” Evelyn asks as the apartment door shuts behind her, and V shrugs.

“Okay as I can be, I guess. My misery’s been coming in waves.”

Evelyn nods in understanding, “I know how that feels.”

It wasn’t that long ago that V had managed to recover a comatose Evelyn from Clouds, catching Woodman mid-transaction with some monstrous backdoor ripper. Judy kept watch over her while she recovered at her apartment. It was a slow process, but Evelyn made it out alive. V often wonders about those odds, wonders to what extent tragedy was avoided. Now when she looks at Evelyn she sees a friend, someone who’d go the extra mile for her because she did the same in turn.

“Food’s gonna get cold, let’s eat first.” Judy motions for the two of them to come sit down. It’s a full spread, and even as V offers to pay back her share, Judy insists it’s a homecoming gift.

“And, something else,” Judy stands up once her takeout boxes have been cleared. She hops up the stairs and opens up her toolbox, taking out some kind of holo screen. “This’ll give us a full scan of your shoulder. Ev’s gonna send it to some of her contacts.”

“What kind of contacts?” V asks. It’s more curiosity than suspicion, though her fear of the Voodoo Boys demanding retribution against Evelyn is always at the back of her mind.

“Arasaka has the monopoly on it, but you can’t honestly expect them to watch all their own distribution.” Evelyn shrugs, “You let me worry about that part. Focus on feeling well enough to install one.” 

“I can customize it a bit for you too, if it’s not to your liking. But I think you’ll like whatever Ev finds.” Judy smiles, she touches a few things on her holo screen and comes over to sit next to V on the couch. “Okay, sit up straight.”

V leans forward from where she’d been reclined and straightens out her spine, pulling off the padded sling. Judy presses a button, and a light grid appears over her shoulder. It rotates several times, and then the grid eventually stretches out to wrap around the entire area. The process only takes a few minutes, and then the lights disappear. Judy looks down at her screen with a bright smile. “Perfect. We’ll send the order out, yeah?” and Evelyn nods.

“Give it about a week, and you’ll be back to your usual merc business, guaranteed.”

Soon it gets dark. V spends the entirety of her day in the apartment with Evelyn and Judy keeping her company. They speak of happenings at Lizzie’s and Clouds. In a lot of ways, nothing has really changed. Management is in the hands of the dolls, but there will always be that tension there – the tension that holds all families in Night City hostage. If you love, you risk losing. That’s how it is to live here. Evelyn and Judy work hard to make sure they don’t lose any more than they already have.

Later, Judy falls asleep with her head in Evelyn’s lap. Evelyn gently running her fingers through Judy’s hair.

“Once we do this, we’re leaving Night City.” Evelyn murmurs, looking up at V.

“Hope that doesn’t mean you’re sticking around this long for my sake. You don’t have to—”

Evelyn gives her a withering look, “V, we don’t need to be demure about this. I owe you, and I pay back my debts.” She sighs, “Besides, it seems like you’ve been through enough already.”

V snorts, “You could say that.”

Evelyn looks up at her, eyes as discerning as ever. “And the relic?”

V shakes her head, “Not going well.”

“Hm,” Evelyn nods once, “I could ask around you know. See what I can dig up.”

“I’d rather you focus on getting out.” V cuts in. Misty’s reading in full force. She needs to do this on her own terms, needs to find the answer outside of the people that surround her.

It’s a nice sentiment, though – it’s something she can hold onto, if nothing else.

>>>

When V wakes up in the morning, Evelyn and Judy are gone.

There is a breakfast sandwich and a coffee sitting on the table near the window, a small sticky note with a smiley face attached to the food’s wax paper. Thus begins the terrible interlude of her miserable little life.

V works on autopilot, eating the food and then sends a grateful text to Judy. V takes a hot shower and has a ridiculous time trying to get dressed with only one hand. She feels like her clothes don’t fit right, that her body doesn’t feel like her own. V nearly calls it quits when she can’t put her shoulder sling on by herself, but manages after getting through a slew of feral curse words. Then she just tries to take Vik’s advice – she takes her painkillers and lets her body heal.

A week goes by without Johnny. Not a single word. V is now resigned to the fact that he may never return. She takes to saying his name out loud each morning, and he responds the same every time. A small push on his side, a lingering moment where she can feel his presence envelop more than just a square inch of space in her head. And then, he goes dim. The only indication that the relic is still stuck in her head is the mild headaches she wakes up with sometimes. Other than that, she is alone. She sleeps a lot, checks her emails, and avoids alcohol knowing it’ll negate the effects of her medication. Unfortunately, every other activity makes her feel like she’s losing braincells. Fixing her guns with one hand is a lesson in patience she simply doesn’t have. The most V can muster is to clean them while she sits on the sofa, one foot holding them in place. She’s looking more and more like a feral animal stuck in an enclosure. After a while she stops trying.

She desperately wants advice from the one person who is avoiding her. She wants to fix this wound between them, because it simply isn’t healing on its own. There’s something missing. 

V texts Rogue, asking to talk, and Rogue invites her to speak at Afterlife. She heads out of the apartment for the first time in what feels like forever. And when she shrugs into Johnny’s jacket, she finds it still feels heavy on her shoulders.

>>>

Rogue waves a hand to let V come into her little corner of the Afterlife.

“How’s the recovery?” Rogue asks.

“Oh, peachy.” V sits down next to the fixer and gestures to the jacket, “Misty helped with the jacket, feeling more and more like an impersonator with each passing day.”

“You on speaking terms?”

V gives her a withering look.

“Radio silence, huh? Thought as much.”

“People keep telling me not to worry, but I think I can tell when someone wants nothing to do with me Rogue.” She runs a hand through her hair, “I fucked up, no recovering from that. And now we’re in this fucking limbo state, I don’t know what to do.” She manages to see one positive thing out of all of this, “I’m just glad nothing happened to you, too.”

Rogue dismisses her concern, “Let me worry about me. You should have a drink, take the edge off,” Rogue raises a hand and gestures to Claire, “Just one, don’t need you swimming in it.”

“Didn’t think you were an enabler.” V smarms.

Rogue sighs, “You’re still miserable and it’s making his bad sides poke through. Have a drink, what’s your pref?”

V leans back on the loft couch and considers, “Jackie Welles.”

There’s silence as Rogue orders the drinks from where she’s sitting, and V doesn’t bother looking up from the pattern on the floor. Then, the telltale sound of clinking glasses on tabletop.

V peers up and sees Claire smiling at her, setting down their order before returning to the bar.

V takes a small sip, realizing how long it’s been since she’s had a drink.

Rogue sets down her glass, already empty. She pours herself another from the bottle Claire left on the table, “I seem to recall Johnny saying something about the pills you take to give him control.”

“Pseudoendotrizine.” V clears her throat, takes another drink and sets her glass down on the table. “Lets him take over. Got omega blockers to make him go quiet too, but…”

“But?”

“I’ve never taken them. Doesn’t feel right.”

“You feel guilty.” Rogue brushes away a loose thread on her pants, “Even if all he does is shit on you.”

“Not anymore, but yeah. Used to.” V nods, going quiet a moment. She considers her words and then looks at Rogue. “He told me, before that I have complete control over him at all times. It never felt right to relinquish the tiny bit of say he’s got left.” V can’t help it, she picks up her drink again and takes a heavy swig, setting it down on the table. “Even if it fuckin’ hurt.”

Rogue brushes her hair from her own face, “Let me tell you what I know about Johnny.”

V lets out a deprecating laugh, “Sure.” V can only think how such a revelation will be both enlightening and insulting. She knows how Johnny thinks so little of her compared to someone like Rogue, how he’d used the queen of the Afterlife against her like ammunition to prove how stupid she’d been with Smasher.

“If he hated you, he wouldn’t be leaving you alone.” She rests her glass on her knee.

V shakes her head, “You didn’t hear him.”

“I didn’t have to. He’ll get his claws in you and aim where he knows it hurts, that’s always been how he operates.” Rogue finishes her second drink, “Difference now though is that he’s got something to lose.”

Her response is automatic, “And what’s that.”

Rogue rolls her eyes, “V, I know you’re not dense.” V looks over at Rogue for a moment with a blank expression, “This isn’t a hard equation to solve.”

V stares at her for a long time, pieces coming together slower than they should. And then it does, and V is utterly mystified. “He said—” V’s voice abruptly halts, then she looks at Rogue as if she needs help, “He told me he wasn’t digging me out this time.”

“Ever consider it was because he can’t deal with your pain on top of his own?”

V thinks somewhere in this conversation is a joke. Rogue must be pulling her leg. “That’s not funny.”

“Did I say it was?” Rogue asks. “I’m being serious V, this connection you have isn’t a one-way street, and Johnny hurts more than you think.”

V feels like there’s more to this, and the way Rogue’s eyes move away from her face—she’s fucking hiding something.

V sits up straight, “What happened that night, Rogue.”

And for the first time, Rogue looks at V the way she’d seen only once before — it’s the way she looks at Johnny. She sighs, cusses under her breath. V gets the distinct feeling that this isn’t how Rogue wanted the conversation to go, but she’d slipped up. Funny, how it always goes sideways wherever Johnny is concerned. Even if he’s not there to witness it. 

Rogue begins slowly, “After Smasher was dead, I ran over to check you. You lost a lot of blood,” she looks out over the other patrons at the bar, “I was trying to make a tourniquet, and when you passed out, I realized how _fucked_ we were.” Rogue looks up at V, “And then you came back, within seconds but it wasn’t you.”

V purses her lips, “It was Johnny.”

“It was like he was…possessed. He kept it together long enough to help me rummage around in your pack for some stabilizer injections. Johnny’s used to combat, used to pain, always been able to handle the adrenaline that comes with it.” Rogue pours another drink and just holds the glass in her hand, considering the liquid swirling inside. “We got your tourniquet in the right spot and then suddenly he just started going downhill, told me you were slipping too far. Babbling on about how you needed to hold on, as if you could hear him.” Rogue seems to struggle with the memory, putting her free hand to her temple. She sighs heavily, “I had doubts you’d make the car ride to your ripper. Losing people is part of the job, part of life here. Johnny knows that, we all do.” She shakes her head, “But I’ve never seen him so desperate before.”

The revelation hangs heavy between them.

V looks down at her hand, “He didn’t tell me that.”

“You think he would? You scared the shit out of him, out of _us_.” Rogue suddenly gets annoyed at the alcohol in her hand and sets it aside.

“Yeah, but Rogue, he needs me for Mikoshi. This is,” V stops for a moment, her throat gone dry. Even she doesn’t believe it anymore, Rogue’s made it clear that Johnny thinks of her more than that – he cares about her. And when she got hurt, it hurt him just the same. This revelation stings in an entirely different way. 

Rogue glares at her, and V feels herself shrink under it. For as nice Rogue is being now, a fixer never has unlimited patience. “It’s time you stop pretending you’re naïve V, we both know you’re not.”

>>>

A few days later, V returns to Vik’s clinic to install the Arasaka cybernetic arm Evelyn had managed to get for her. It’s a sleek, minimalist design, touting a pearlescent dark grey finish. The metal particles embedded in the plating reflect and refract light when it moves. It’s baffling, much more luxurious than anything V was predicting, but Evelyn insists it as the most durable model she could get her hands on.

And so, V acquiesces to this new piece of tech that very soon becomes part of her. This chapter in her life feels that much lonelier because the only person who knows what she’s going through isn’t there to witness it.

When all is said and done, she sits up in the chair and lifts her new metal arm to the light. She flexes her hand, listens to the click of metal, the slight whirring underneath the plating that comes to life as she moves. All of it reminds her of only one fucking thing: Johnny. It sends a wave of hurt through her bones and to her phantom limb.

“How do you feel?” Vik asks, looking at her arm, and not at her face.

There is a tear in her eye she refuses to let fall. This is a good thing isn’t it? This is the beginning of something new, right? None of that fucking matters, and maybe that’s a bad thing – a sign of something bigger lurking under her skin. She’d give it up if it meant he’d come back; she’d give up everything.

She studies the arm another moment, and decides, “Like a different person.” 

>>>

As it turns out, the transition with her new arm is not seamless. Once V left Vik’s clinic, she made quick work of heading over the the docks and collecting some glass bottles, lining them up for target practice.

And she misses. Every single one. 

It’s a strange feeling to know that the one goal you were aiming for has pathetic results, to know that everything you are can come into question with a few bad shots on some bottles. When V thought she was recovering, she was in fact simply delaying the inevitable of her mental breakdown. It somehow accumulated overtime, things she thought she would be able to handle. But then suddenly the weight of it all is too much, and she realizes the unhappiness that has plagued her for weeks has rendered her a grief-stricken husk of who she used to be. In one part of her brain, she realizes how melodramatic it is to fall to her knees, but she still does it. She realizes how stupid it is to clutch at her hair until it is painful, but she still does it. She’s cried more this last month than she has in her entire life, and still, it’s not enough.

The skin of her human hand is rubbed raw and bloody from where she’d fallen, and V just stares down at it without feeling. Her cybernetic shoulder gives off a resounding phantom pain and it’s just another reminder of how ill-equipped she is to deal with these things on her own, despite her initial confidence that she could. Pistol still clutched in her metal fingers, V finds she’s barely able to recognize herself. She so tired of pretending she’s strong enough to get through this while still holding onto hope. Maybe she’d been trying to see Johnny in herself because she knows he’s the only one out of the both of them with enough strength to take constant beatings on the soul and still come out on the other side with any sort of conviction intact. She wishes so badly to be anyone but herself, because at this point, she doesn’t think she’s anyone at all.

The relic gives out a shrill spike of pain behind her eyes, and V groans. She has to reign it in quickly, she can’t keep moping. V bows her head, hugs her knee to her chest and silently begins to wrestle the pain that’d spilled out back into its small little box in the center of her empty chest.

Then, a noise V hasn’t heard in over a month – a hushed glitch.

At first, she thinks she is imagining it. She feels him before she sees him, so attuned to his lack of presence that the mere suggestion makes her hypervigilant. He is behind her, and she is too scared to look.

And then fingers on her back, gentle at first, unsure and tentative. Johnny places his entire hand on her, a soothing motion that crawls up and supports the back of her neck before dropping back down. V shudders in relief, in exhaustion. She doesn’t know why he returned now, she doesn’t know what’s changed.

“You’re here.” V announces out loud, somehow it feels necessary.

“Yeah.” and he sounds so different it catches her off guard. Johnny’s voice is strained and raw, a tug of emotion she’d never expect from him. He sounds exhausted, like the time apart has hurt him just as much. It’s so different from the last time they spoke, V has to cover her face with her good arm to try and calm herself.

“Tried to come back sooner,” Johnny falters, “But I—I couldn’t.” his voice cracks and V finally lifts her head.

Even if everyone around her has assured her otherwise, she still has to ask.

_You don’t hate me?_

“I don’t hate you.” Johnny assures, even if V can’t see him, he’s laying his cards on the table through voice alone. “Never did.”

 _You left me._ She tries not to let the pain seep into her thoughts, but it does anyway.

She feels his hand stop in place and then Johnny leans his forehead against her back, as way of an apology. “Needed some time.”

 _Time._ V repeats. She doesn’t expect him to be any more transparent than he usually is, so she mulls it over in her mind. It’s all so much harder to process when she feels like she died weeks ago.

For the first time in forever, Johnny tries to reach out and give back. Tries to bridge that gap he’d only recently ever tried to break. “To deal with things.” He amends.

V straightens up and turns in the dirt to face him. Johnny looks –

He looks defeated, tired. After so much loss, things clicking into place feels like a miracle. It was never about being angry at her. Johnny was watching someone go through the same trauma he did, unable to stop it and incapable of coping with it. He blinks suddenly, his gaze narrowing in on the middle of her face.

“You’re bleedin’, V.”

She wipes halfhazardly at the blood with her human arm, and something in her indifference makes Johnny’s expression harden.

V moves on, _Didn’t have to do it alone._ She looks down at the chain around his neck. _Would’ve listened._

He sighs, “Never been very good at talkin’.”

V smiles a little, for the first time in weeks – a heartbreaking relief that she still feels so incredibly connected to him. _I know._ Because of course she does. Of course she does.

Jesus fucking christ, _V loves him_. She loves him. And she’s so happy he’s back, but it is bittersweet.

Johnny sighs, and then he extends his hand to her, helping her to her feet. V stands up and holsters her gun, and then Johnny hugs her. It isn’t warm, he doesn’t smell like anything soothing. But it’s that heaviness, that pressure of his presence on her skin that makes V’s lip quiver, makes her breath come out shaky. Her nose bumps against his shoulder, and it’s been so long since she’s let herself be held. He doesn’t let go for a long time, and V wishes so badly their roles were reversed. So she could sink into him and disappear, instead of the opposite.

Johnny pulls back, “How’s the shooting?”

_Awful._

“Show me.”

V sighs and resigns herself to his request. She unholsters her gun, holds it at her side. Then, she raises her pistol like she used to, but her entire arm shudders under the weight.

Johnny walks around her and touches his fingers to her arm, “Gotta compensate for the weight difference in your new arm if you wanna shoot like you used to." Johnny stands behind her, and adjusts her shoulder, “Press back into this muscle.”

_It hurts in the joint._

“That’ll come with time, your shoulder’s taking that weight different now.”

V lowers her pistol and rests it in the palm of her hand. There’s so much she wants to ask, but she doesn’t know if it’s worth asking anymore.

 _Time, huh._ She shakes her head, _Haven’t been doing much of anything since you left_.

“No time like now. You’re not doin’ so hot, can tell.”

V laughs a little, like it’s funny only because of the irony. There is work to be done, and V knows it. _Yeah. Wanna know what that key is for anyways. The one Grayson gave me._ She shrugs. _Start there, and then move on._

“V.” Johnny calls, and oh if it isn’t the loveliest thing to hear. She looks up at him and he is holding his aviators in his hands, an anxious twitch to his fingers. “What Grayson said about…” he looks up, then back down, “My body.” 

_I know._ She heads for the car, not looking back. _Let’s put some things to rest._


End file.
